Mothercare - Is this legal?

bennyboy_2

Hi all,


Last week the Mrs and I purchased a buggy online from mothercare. Total was £595. This £595 was "reserved" by my bank (Nationwide) to cover the payment which I was told, by mothercaes website, would be taken when the items were dispatched. This left me with £595 less in my available balance than in my account balance, which is fine.


The items were dispatched over 2 days and there were 2 transactions shown on my bank statement. 1 @ £450 and 1 @ £145 which totals the £595.


However, these 2 transactions took money that was not from the "reserved" amount of £595. This left me essentially £595 down on my account balance (which is fine as I'd received the goods I'd asked for) but also with an additional £595 still unavailable to me as it was "reserved" for payment of the buggy. This has led to me being £1190 down on my available balance all week, which has taken me over my limit which had meant I've had no access to funds from that bank, which I should have done.


Can Mothercare do this? Surely they should be only able to have access to a maximum of £595 from my account as that is all that I have purchased. The "reserved" money has since been reversed, but that has taken 7 days.


When contacting mothercare I've been met with a wall of "well it's not our fault" attitude.

unholyangel

Ignore the spammer above.

As for your issue, what has likely happened is that mothercare have ringfenced the initial amount to check you had it available. But when they've dispatched the item, instead of collecting the initial amount (or something has went wrong and they've been unable to collect the initial amount), they've put through a new payment.

They haven't actually taken the first payment though. Contact mothercare and ask them to fax your bank saying they wont be collecting it along with the payment details and your bank should lift the ringfence on the funds.

sofiar

very odd, 2 transactions for 1 item??? plus total amounts twice?? again very odd, i would speak with them and get them to account for it and also pay back any overdraft charges you have encountered due to their incompetence!

bennyboy_2

Thanks Unholy,


The ring-fenced £595 has been lifted today, I was advised by Nationwide that the this automatically happens after 7 days is money is not allocated, so it's sorted now. I had previously contacted mothercare who advised it was down to me to sort it out not them which was great.


But it left me in a position since the start of the week where I've been unable to access funds (there would have been a couple of hundred left in the account) to live on and have had to rely on borrowing from relatives to put food on the table for the family.


It seems wrong how they can reserve the money, but then choose to help themselves to money not reserved for the purchase, leaving me in that position.

unholyangel

bennyboy wrote: »

Thanks Unholy,


The ring-fenced £595 has been lifted today, I was advised by Nationwide that the this automatically happens after 7 days is money is not allocated, so it's sorted now. I had previously contacted mothercare who advised it was down to me to sort it out not them which was great.


But it left me in a position since the start of the week where I've been unable to access funds (there would have been a couple of hundred left in the account) to live on and have had to rely on borrowing from relatives to put food on the table for the family.


It seems wrong how they can reserve the money, but then choose to help themselves to money not reserved for the purchase, leaving me in that position.

1) it could be down to how they process orders - which can be changed. If this is the case, there will be hundreds of complaints exactly like yours. Complain to the company itself and perhaps also trading standards - that their business practices are unnecessarily exposing their customers to hardship/loss which could be avoidable.

2) as I said above, its also possible that something went wrong during the process, that it wasn't something within their control.

If you incurred any actual losses (sorry but doesn't sound like you have from what you've said so far) then ask to be reimbursed. If you haven't suffered a loss you could still ask for a goodwill gesture (you don't ask, you definitely won't get) but I'd be extra polite as theres no entitlement to goodwill.

peachyprice

It's a total PITA, but not uncommon at all.

Asda online shopping are terrors for this, they ringfence the estimated amount when you place your order and then take the actual amount when they send it, leaving the ringfenced amount sitting there.

A lot of hotel chains do it too.

kazzah

another reason why (if you have one available) it is better to pay with a credit card than a debit card ( assuming you won't be hit with interest)
also better for any kind of online purchase- you can bet your bottom dollar that if there is ANY kind of error it will be sorted MUCH quicker than a debit card purchase- after all, a debit card purchase is using YOUR OWN money and a credit card purchase is using the company's money - they are generally much faster to sort problems if it is their money at risk.

takman

kazzah wrote: »

another reason why (if you have one available) it is better to pay with a credit card than a debit card ( assuming you won't be hit with interest)
also better for any kind of online purchase- you can bet your bottom dollar that if there is ANY kind of error it will be sorted MUCH quicker than a debit card purchase- after all, a debit card purchase is using YOUR OWN money and a credit card purchase is using the company's money - they are generally much faster to sort problems if it is their money at risk.

If it was a Credit Card it probably wouldn't have been noticed because no money is actually taken when it is reserved.

Plus another reason to use a Credit Card would be for Section 75 protection. But I'm assuming the OP doesn't have a credit card because they had to borrow money from family members for food shopping.

[Deleted User]

I'm afraid I had a two week delay for monies that were 'ring fenced' by Amazon, the order was cancelled (by me) and then I had to wait and wait for the money to be added back to my credit card account as available money.

Amazon said it was up to the credit card company to sort out, the credit card company said it was up to Amazon.., and it would take a week. It took two.

At least it didn't send me overdrawn however.

molerat

Was it not Sainsburys pay at pump that used to authorise the whole £99 max fill amount ?

boliston

molerat wrote: »

Was it not Sainsburys pay at pump that used to authorise the whole £99 max fill amount ?

I noticed that with pay at pump the other day with £99 showing in pending transactions when a fill up normally costs about £25 - £30 as i don't have a massive "gas guzzler"